A Letter from Brooklyn Public Library President, Linda E. Johnson, April 17, 2013: Examined. What Does It Really Say?

I am printing below, indented in italics, the totality of an April 17, 2013 letter that Brooklyn Public Library President, Linda E. Johnson, sent out by email to patrons of the Brooklyn Public Library about the BPL’s proposed sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights library.  Interspersed with the text of that letter is analysis about why that letter should not be reassuring or placating the way it was obviously written to be.

All the somewhat erratic bolding in the text of the Linda E. Johnson letter is the way that the original Linda Johnson letter, is bolded.  It looks like someone added it after the fact for things they wanted to emphasize.

(The BPL letter is sometimes redundant so bear with me if I am sometimes similarly redundant in response.)

The letter starts:

        A Letter from Brooklyn Public Library President, Linda E. Johnson

    April 17, 2013

Linda E. Johnson is the Chief Executive Officer of the Brooklyn Public Library.  The day this letter was sent out to `BPL Patrons,’ April 17, 2013, was the day after a meeting of the BPL trustees.  The sending of this letter was not publicly discussed at that BPL trustees' meeting (although there was an executive session supposedly about personnel matters where it could might have been discussed). For some reason, the BPL did not put this letter up on its website.

    Dear BPL Patron,

    Over the last few months, BPL has been sharing information with the Brooklyn Heights community about our plans for the future of the Brooklyn Heights Library. We hope this update on our efforts to create a better branch in Brooklyn Heights is helpful.

“Over the last few months, BPL has been sharing information”: Not mentioned is that the BPL was not sharing information with the public about the planned sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library for the very long time this was in the works.  This means that the for this very extended period the BPL was not sharing information the public could give no feedback or otherwise react about how this was a bad idea.  Now the public’s reaction must be rushed.

The BPL first started sharing information only at the end of January 2013.  Sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library was planned at least as far back as October 2011 and the BPL has quietly been considering selling libraries at least as far back as the summer of 2007, approximately the same date that the New York Public Library was arranging the sale-for-shrinkage of Donnell Library in Manhattan, the previous transaction which the sale-for-shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library closely resembles in many ways.

    As you may be aware, public service at the Brooklyn Heights branch was crippled last summer by an unexpected failure of the building’s air conditioning system, resulting in sporadic closures.

The “unexpected failure of the building’s air conditioning system” occurred after the BPL decided to sell the Brooklyn Heights Library.  The citing of the air conditioning as a reason to sell the library was not announced until more than a year after the decision had already been made.  Virtually every time library administration officials say they want to sell libraries they cite problems with the air condition system.  This includes: Sale of the Donnell, demolition of the research stacks of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library, the Pacific Street Branch, etc.   

    In order to ensure consistent service this coming summer, starting July 1 and expected to end August 30, the Brooklyn Heights Library will be open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. After Labor Day, branch hours should return to normal.

The BPL announced plans cutting back on library hours amounting to a more than 50% shutdown of the library and said that they will also be “redeploying staff.”  The odd hours will be an impediment to use of the library and thereby diminish and disperse the constituency for the library’s continuation.  Citizens Defending Libraries believes that working air conditioning should be provided this summer and the library kept fully open.

    While reduced summer hours are not a long-term solution, the schedule is designed to allow us to keep our doors open and avoid the intermittent closures that occurred last year due to problems with the HVAC system, a system that requires a $3.5 million overhaul.

The library is arguing that sale and shrinkage of the library is the only feasible long-term solution to the problems they say the air conditioning poses.  Would you feel you needed to sell your home and move into a smaller apartment if your air conditioning went on the fritz?  The idea that the air conditioning in the 1962 building, renovated in the 1990s, would cost a pretty astounding $3.5 million to fix is highly suspicious.  These cited repair cost are far higher than original estimated numbers and the BPL has not been forthcoming with the furnishing of any bids upon which they could be basing this figure.

    Unfortunately, BPL faces a staggering $230 million in deferred maintenance across the 60 neighborhood libraries (including $9 million in capital repairs needed at Brooklyn Heights Library), but has received $15 million per year on average from the City to address these needs. The current situation is unsustainable. The time has come for innovative solutions to help us provide the service Brooklynites deserve.

The estimated figures for “deferred maintenance” to the extent that can be relied upon at all, have been built up while there was a deliberately underfunding of the libraries by the city.  This underfunding has been going on concurrently with the planning for sell-offs of libraries.  It’s an excuse not a cause.  Even the figure quoted for these multiple years of deferred maintenance for the entire BPL system is small.  It is roughly comparable to the subsidy for a year’s worth for subsidy for “Barclays” arena events, not withstanding that “More people visited public libraries in New York than every major sports team and every major cultural institution combined.”

    To address the problems at the Brooklyn Heights Library, we hope to build a new branch on the existing site on Cadman Plaza. Our project involves selling the property and working with a private developer to build a new facility as part of a larger building, at no cost to BPL or taxpayers.

This says that the new library will be “no cost to BPL or taxpayers” but it doesn’t say that it will be at no cost to the public which is what there will be when publicly owned and necessary assets are sold.  There will be a cost to the public when the public has to endure a significantly diminished level of library service until a new library is provided and public will also suffer detriment from the proposed shrinkage.  As for there being no cost to the BPL (and implicitly to the taxpayers supporting the BPL) the BPL previously issued information that there would be cost to the BPL that it characterized as small.

The method the BPL proposes of “working with a private developer” in a “public-private partnership” to build a new facility raises the specter that the BPL will likely not be receiving the best possible price for the property sold and that it will likely not be the best developer either.  Most of us now think of such partnerships as developer-driven private-public partnerships where public officials defer while the developer takes over government functions.  The BPL has stated that it is considering turning this development over to Forest City Ratner (which in 1988 was given the adjacent subsidized property without bid) even though the Ratner firm is notorious for abuses of such partnerships and not fulfilling promises of public benefit.

    Based on our plan, we hope to:

    •    Construct a new, modern branch in Brooklyn Heights. The new neighborhood branch will still be a public facility, owned by the City and operated by BPL, as are most of our libraries. It will be comparable in size to the publicly accessible portion of the current branch and will remain one of the largest branches in BPL’s system. The Business & Career Library, currently located within the same building, will move to BPL’s Central Library on Grand Army Plaza.

“Modern,” is a BPL euphemism for libraries that get rid of books in order to facilitate shrinkage.   The BPL says that it s not actually getting rid of books and therefore not actually shrinking, saying that there will still be books but the books will be turned in to a “back office” operation with off-site places that books will be sent to and will come from.  It’s just that you won’t be able to find books at the library the way you used to.  Linda Johnson says about books becoming less and less the mission of the libraries: “And it makes me sad too, because I love a book as much as anybody does.”

The “comparable in size” description is tricky.  Note that with a growing city, the growing use of the library, and the redevelopment of the site bringing in money and making expanding use of the property rights associated with the site, that the library isn’t growing, or even staying the same size.   Thus “comparable” becomes the operative word.  But it is only comparable to some of the space, not all of the space, and only to what the BPL considers the “branch” library, not the Business and Career library that has always been a functionally integrated part of it.  The BPL is decommissioning this library as a centrally located main library. 

    •    Take advantage of the value of property in the neighborhood to deliver a new branch in Brooklyn Heights without diverting funding from other parts of Brooklyn. We receive far too little money to properly maintain our buildings. This plan allows us to provide the library service Brooklyn Heights needs without taking money from other neighborhoods.

The BPL has acknowledged that it is motivated to sell the most valuable of its properties first.  So far that is acknowledged to mean this and the Pacific Branch library, which is also next to Forest City Ratner property and yards away from its highly subsidized “Barclays” arena.  The BPL doesn’t seem to acknowledge that these are the same properties that are the most valuable to the public, the most expensive or impossible to replace with true equivalents once they are disposed of.

The reference that implies that the sale of libraries, particularly the Brooklyn Heights library, is somehow to avoid “taking money from other neighborhoods” is a transparent attempt to divide the public and to suggest that the public oughtn’t to be united in its opposition to this sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights library.  But other libraries like the historic Pacific Street will be similarly sold.  The BPL’s strategic plan says that all of its real estate is to be subject to such `leveraging’ but it is not yet fully disclosing all its plans.  Incremental disclosure by the BPL serves a divide and conquer strategy and to tamp down public reaction.  In actuality, no library is taking money from other libraries because the underfunding of libraries is artificial.  Libraries cost a relative pittance to properly fund.  What actually takes money from the libraries is the deliberate underfunding of them to generate an excuse for these sales.

The shrinking of the Brooklyn Heights Library will tend to make it a library that will serve only the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights.  Right now people come from many neighborhoods to visit the library so this shrinkage is, in essence, a somewhat discriminatory eviction.

    While we are excited about starting to work on our new Brooklyn Heights branch, we recognize there are some questions about our plans. Please understand:

The BPL recognizes that the affected communities are not buying their story and that questions have been raised about their true priorities by Citizens Defending Libraries and others.  In other words the community is not excited about their plans to sell, demolish and shrink libraries.

    •    This project is a response to the serious issues facing the Brooklyn Heights building that leverages the unique value of the building’s location.

“Leverages”?: Wouldn’t it be better in such a document to abandon the Wall Street and PR speak for plain English?   If there is “unique value of the building’s location” then the BPL really ought to realize and take into account something obvious and related: that the library there are selling also has a unique value to the public, not just to those they are selling it to.  To reiterate, its unique value means that once sold we can never recover what was lost.

    •    BPL is not closing the Brooklyn Heights Library. In fact, we are developing a plan to build a new, better, more modern library of comparable size to the public portion of the current branch, so that we can serve the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood for generations to come.

The BPL is, in fact, planning to close the library.  How long it will be closed may be speculated upon.  This transaction is modeled on the 2008 closing of the Donnell Library in a sale for shrinkage deal.  It is still closed and will not be reopened until at least 2015, eight long years.*  “Better, more modern” is an obfuscating description for a smaller library where there will be fewer of the current resources, including fewer books, which Linda Johnson in interviews has described as old fashioned.  The library will not be “comparable size” to the current library because be they will be evicting the Business and Career Library, which is an integral part of the existing library and the main system library it currently is.  The BPL’s idea is that the much smaller library can be considered equivalent because they don’t need to count the reduction of whatever space they chose to attribute to these services they are evicting from this location.

(* NOTE:  I just updated this (4/23/2013), correcting the completion date as 2015.  Previously, it said 2014 which was my prior information, but apparently the date has now been pushed further out according to the NYPL's website.  The information doesn't Google up because the NYPL website refers only to the “NYPL’s 53rd Street Library is scheduled to reopen to the public in 2015" without mentioning it by the now infamous name of “Donnell.”  The new, postponed 2015 date was called to my attention by the following Library Journal article about these sell-offs that is well worth reading: For Brooklyn PL, Planned Sale of Branches Promises Opportunity, Provokes Concern, by Norman Oder on April 22, 2013.)

As for serving the “neighborhood for generations to come”: in a bigger, wealthier, growing city where the library usage is up 40% programmatically and 59% in circulation, and even more in Brooklyn, we need bigger libraries, not smaller ones.  In addition, it is not just a question of choosing to insularly serve the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood alone: This library is on the Brooklyn Heights/Downtown Brooklyn business district border and is located at the borough's business most central trans hub.  This library should continue to serve Brooklyn and the rest of the city and the surrounding neighborhood.  The selectively narrow referencing of “Brooklyn Heights” should invite scrutiny as to what the goals here are.

    •    BPL does not plan to reduce hours at the Brooklyn Heights Library beyond the summer. We will implement shortened hours for the summer, running only from July 1 - August 30, after which normal operations will resume.

This seeming promise on the part of Ms. Johnson and the BPL to resume “normal operations” after August 30, should be regarded with skepticism, especially if it is being interpreted to imply that the Business and Career Library will be brought back to the Heights after August 30.  The BPL has said that it intends effectively shrink the Brooklyn Heights library by evicting the Business and Career Library.  (To the extent that Business and Career Library would continue to exist at all it would in some other incarnation jammed into Grand Army Plaza branch together with whatever other libraries they ultimately decide to jam in there when shrinking down the system.)  The BPL’s spokeperson, Josh Nachowitz, even told one reporter that it has been their plan to do this for years.

Mr. Nachowitz says that it will be redeploying staff when it does the more than 50% shutdown of the Brooklyn Heights library this summer and that the Business and Career Library’s services and programs will be relocated to Grand Army Plaza at the same time.  Mr. Nachowitz said that the BPL’s plan was to bring the Business and Career programs and services back to Brooklyn Heights at the end of the summer but said that this intention was subject to what he described as “a giant asterisk,” the BPL's subsequent determination that there was sufficient funding to do so.

Since claims of inadequate funding is the excuse for all of BPL’s decisions to do whatever they want in terms of the sale and shrinkage whenever they want to do it, it should not be expected that they won’t leave the library services at these lower levels.  They might not even consider that they have actually resumed “normal operations” since they may be considering themselves to be speaking here only of “normal operations” for what they consider may be one half of what currently comprises the library.

    •    BPL will not eliminate service in Brooklyn Heights at any time during the project. We will remain in the existing building until construction begins, and at that time will relocate our services and staff to a temporary space in the neighborhood.

The statement that the “BPL will not eliminate service in Brooklyn Heights at any time during the project” does not mean that services won’t be significantly reduced.  The existing library is currently 62,000 square feet.  The BPL has talked about having an interim library of as small as 5,000 square feet for the many years the library would be off site.  That hardly seems consistent with a representation that they will (or even could) “relocate our services and staff to a temporary space in the neighborhood.”  Spokeman Nachowitz told the New York Times that the new library would be provided at  “essentially no cost to the library system,” but this lack of service would amount to a substantial cost to the public that isn’t being taken into account. 

    The process to develop our new Brooklyn Heights Library will be complex and take years to complete. . .

The BPL would have us believe that it is not urgent to oppose sale and shrinkage of the library now.  At the same time they are arguing in other circles that its plans to sell and shrink the library should not be opposed because it is a “done deal.”  The BPL's plan is to have a contract that specifies that the library will be sold, exactly how much it will be shrunk and who the developer will be in the next couple of months and to execute that contract before December 31st, the last day of Bloomberg's term and before most of the public reviews.

    . . . We have formed a Community Advisory Committee comprised of key community stakeholders and local elected officials who will meet regularly. We will also present the plan at other meetings, including at the Community Board 2 meeting on April 24. Please visit our Brooklyn Heights Library webpage for continued updates.

The BPL itself formed the “Community Advisory Committee” ?  That may be a more tellingly accurate admission than the BPL should care to admit.  This “Community Advisory Committee” was formed with its principal members being something called “Friends” of the Brooklyn Heights Branch Library, Inc. and, saying they were there to support that Friends group, the Brooklyn Heights Association.  Strangely, both these groups are fully acquiescent to the BPL’s sale and shrinkage plans.  In a recent odd history that goes back to shortly before insider information about the sale of the library was made public, the Friends group has shrunk down to fewer than 200 members, less than half its former size.   The “Community Advisory Committee”  now also includes “local elected officials” partly because Citizens Defending Libraries informed elected officials about the committee and asked elected officials to invite themselves on board to monitor its activities.

    I will send you periodic emails about where we are in the public approval process and you can, of course, ask any of our branch librarians for more information. Additionally, you can email any questions or concerns to brooklynheightsproject@brooklynpubliclibrary.org.

The Community Board 2 meeting on April 24, 2013 is open to public comment: 6:00 PM at Brooklyn Borough Hall 209 Joralemon Street.  Linda Johnson does not say that branch librarians have fears about giving out accurate information about the proposal and have been told what they are to tell the public. Only if you earn their utmost confidence are they likely to tell you what they really think. Many librarians have been laid off throughout the system.  The NYPL has been having laid-off librarians sign “nondisparagement agreements” saying that they will not criticize such plans in exchange for severance.

    We look forward to continuing to work with the community to provide Brooklyn Heights with the best possible library service.

    Very truly,


    Linda E. Johnson

    President & CEO

Really?

Anthony W. Crowell

At the April 16, 2013 Brooklyn Public Library trustees meeting the chairman of the board publicly thanked certain unnamed trustees for making phone calls to the public about the plans to sell and shrink the library.  Presumably these were the phone calls elected officials received telling them they should ignore the public opposition to the plan.  The chairman, attorney Anthony W. Crowell, noted in that meeting that the plans had recently received a lot of press.  He said that, notwithstanding, the BPL still planned to “plow ahead” with the plans as originally described to the trustees.  Some individual BPL trustees are apparently uneasy with the plans.  However, we noted that after the meeting many of the existing trustees told us they could not talk to us.  I asked the chairman what was what with trustees talking and not talking to the public.  He explained that the trustees had been told not to talk to the public until they had been subject to education sessions to get the message right.  But if they don't talk to the public they can't listen to the public’s concerns.

By the way: It may be that if you are a real estate developer on the BPL board of trustees you do not need one of these education sessions to be talking to the public.

City Comptroller John C. Liu criticizing the plunder of the libraries at City Hall press conference last Thursday that was the culminating event of Citizens Defending Libraries Library Protection Week events.

Condoning The Sale and Shrinkage Of The Brooklyn Heights Library, Does The Brooklyn Heights Associations Think Of Friends Group As A Fig Leaf? It Should Think Again.

Awning of 24 Monroe Place in foreground, 19 Monroe Place in background.  Two addresses associated with the sale and shrinkage of libraries

For some it has been a shock that the Brooklyn Heights Association is not taking a stand against the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights library, which involves a proposed contract to lock the deal in with a developer before the end of Bloomberg’s term.  It turns out that a fig leaf the BHA is using to explain why they are not standing up for the community may be awkwardly small and problematic.  The BHA reportedly says it was supporting the postion of a Friends of the Library group.  Judy Stanton, Executive Director of the BHA, told the Brooklyn Paper, “the Brooklyn Heights Association is simply supporting the position of the librarians and the Friends of the Library.”  (See: The Brooklyn Paper, March 29, 2013, Heights Association not a book critic: Group isn’t fighting library building sale, by Jaime Lutz.)

It probably seems counterintuitive that a group calling itself the “Friends” of the Brooklyn Heights Branch Library, Inc. would be choosing to accede to the sale and shrinkage of the neighborhood library without opposition.  Who is this so-called “Friends” group?  That’s a strange story to tell.  (As for the notion that “librarians” favor this, as stated by Ms. Stanton, the question is who is being referred to with the term “the librarians.”  I would say that most true “librarians” do not favor sale and shrinkage of this or other New York City library system assets.)

Once upon a time the Friends group was a tidy little group of neighborhood volunteers that raised funds to help support the Brooklyn Heights library.  Led by its former president Diana Prizeman, it was once more than 400 members strong.  Things, however, have changed.  In July of 2012 the group was taken over by Deborah Hallen and the number of trustees and its membership have dwindled drastically.  The group now has fewer than 200 members, which may have something to do with Hallan’s serial dismissal of many of the group’s trustees ever since she took the group over.  Though Hallen has taken control of the group she is technically not the president, only its secretary, but the group’s official president, Katy Louise Miller, has absented herself from the group's activities, perhaps troubled, with good reason, by various goings on.

Caldecott winner

Hallen became interested in resuming a former relationship with the Friends group in the fall of 2011 after the group held a September event honoring her husband, famed children’s book illustrator and Caldecott award winner, Paul O. Zelinsky.  (Previously, there had been plenty of reason for Mr. Zelinsky to have dealings with the libraries where his books can readily be found.)

In the fall of 2011, insiders knew that there were plans to sell the Brooklyn Heights library in a real estate deal although the public was, as yet, uniformed of this fact.  Shortly after Hallen took over the Friends group, the Brooklyn Heights library started having the reported insurmountable problems with its air conditioning system that have been cited as the Brooklyn Public Library system’s justification for selling the building.  The public was not informed that the building was to be sold until January of this year.

When Hallen took over the group she, by her own accounts, involved herself with lawyers and corporate housekeeping measures the exact purpose of which may be speculated upon.  She also started changing the composition of the board, dismissing trustees (but not the Friends’ nominal president) for infrequent attendance.  She also harshly criticized the prior administration of the group, leveling charges about faults she said she perceived.

Hallen’s own administration of the group would seem to raise comparably more questions.

Hallen is fighting hard to prevent her Friends group trustees from in any way opposing the sale and shrinkage of the library.  She recently sent an email to her trustees instructing them not to oppose the planned sale to a developer that involves the shrinkage of the library.  Said Hallen in her email:

If you are one of the Trustees who wants to tell me that we need to stop the sale, then please remove yourself as a Trustee, and we don't need to hear from you. We will accept any resignations.

This was an especially strange instruction since, as is evident from the group’s Facebook page records, the trustees never met to discuss and vote on whether or not to oppose the library sale and shrinkage after the idea of it was finally disclosed to the public.

The Friends group Facebook page states a position for the group about going along with the sale and shrinkage.  It uses different words but coincides with the BHA’s position with such exactitude that the two statements may likely have been the subject of some very careful lawyerly review.  It was posted on Facebook on Sunday March 17th, the same day the New York Times published an article supportive of the idea that city libraries and schools should be sold off to real estate developers `craving’ the properties.  While the Friends Facebook posting of this position was on the 17th, the BHA posted its own position (reliant on the Friends position) on Thursday, March 14th after its board voted.  Hallen, wrote in another email,“The BHA took their position after we took ours,” so apparently this public posting of the Friends position was held back for some period of time.

The posted position of the Friends may not even be the position of the Friends trustees.  On Facebook it is stated to be the position of the a “Steering Committee,” not the position of the Friends board.

This is what is on Facebook:

Here is the position statement of the Steering Committee of the FBHBL:

"For several hundred years, public lending libraries have contributed to American democracy and the ideal of equal opportunity for all citizens, offering free access to information to all people. The FBHBL, Inc.'s role is to insure that we are never without a Brooklyn Heights Branch Library. Our aim is to also prevent any interruption or degradation of library services in the course of the possible sale and development of the site of the existing branch. It is imperative that access to the public library is maintained in the face of logistical challenges, and that library service continues to be provided seamlessly to our community. Moreover, in keeping with the stated goals of the BPL, the FBHBL expects to exercise oversight and to provide meaningful input into the size and nature of any replacement facility.”

Whoever this “Steering Committee” committee is there appear to be many trustees who don’t know who it is or when such a committee was created to issue statements on behalf of the group.  One trustee I talked to was even unaware that the Friends group had taken a position, even as of this last week, telling me that she was still unsure what position the Friends would take because it involved so many difficult  questions that would need to be thought about.

Click to enlarge: Chart from prior NNY article comparing positions of BHA, BPL, and inferred developer and Citizens Defending Libraries.  The position of the Friends, though worded differently, is identical to that of the BHA.

Meanwhile, Hallen is giving her trustees other apparently inaccurate instruction about how it is not within their power to oppose the library’s sale.  In the email first quoted above she writes (the ALL CAPS lettering is hers):

ALSO PLEASE UNDERSTAND that we are not in the position of trying to stop the sale. We are a 501(c) 3 Organization and have to adhere to our by-laws. Recall that our position is to have continuity of library service no matter what happens to the building.

There is no reason why a 501(c)(3) organization, a charitable organization, could not oppose the sale or advocate for a bigger library as you might expect it to.  Former Friends president Diana Prizeman said she knows of nothing in the by-laws in place when she was in change that would prevent it.  It would be odd for a set of by-laws to include such a position and even odder if such a provision were inserted into the by-laws at a time when nobody except insiders knew that the library was going to be put up for sale.

Hallen also invokes professional advice to tell the trustees they can’t oppose the sale:

I have been told that as a representative of the Friends (by our attorney and accountant) that we cannot oppose the impending sale 

Again, this would be a very strange thing for an accountant or a lawyer to advise the Friends group, but Ms. Hallen is not specifying who this lawyer is or who the accountant is.  It is not clear that any of the trustees know who she is talking about.  One guess is that a lawyer Ms. Hallen may be conferring with is Roger Adler, a criminal defense lawyer, who has been involved in politics and is the husband of  Renée Adler, the trustee who has been made the new treasurer of the Friends group.  One reason to think this is that when Citizens Defending Libraries was mobilizing to issue a petition (that can be signed online) and oppose the sale of the library the suggestion was made, via the Friends group, that CDL should seek the counsel of Mr. Adler, who was characterized at the time as an attorney interested in the subject of libraries.  (I am one of those involved with organizing Citizens Defending Libraries.)

There are now only thirteen remaining trustees of the Friends group, including Ms. Hallen, Ms. Adler, and Ms. Miller.

One thing that is interesting is that there is a concentration of these trustees that are associated with close-together Monroe Place addresses.  Monroe Place is the one block long Brooklyn Heights street where Ms. Hallen lives.  Ms. Hallen and at least two other trustees live at the same Monroe Place.  At least one other trustee lives on Monroe Place at a Monroe Place address that is just one digit different.  According to public records another of trustee’s phone numbers has been associated with another nearby Monroe Place address.  What makes all of this even more interesting is that Ms. Hallen’s Monroe Place address is almost directly across the street from Monroe Place brownstone townhouse of David G. Offensend. . .

David G. Offensend

. . . David Offensend is a very important figure when it comes to libraries and their selling off.  Mr. Offensend left Wall Street to go to work for New York Public Library in 2004 and, according to NYPL documents and other accounts, is the individual who is perhaps most significantly responsible for the secretive sale-for-shrinkage of Manhattan’s beloved Donnell library, which stood across the street from MOMA.  That sale of that library was suddenly announced to the public in November of 2007.  Mr. Offensend is also significantly responsible for the consolidating shrinkage of the NYPL Central Library Plan pursuant to which, if library and city officials have their way, will involve the irreversible demolition of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library’s famed research stacks before Mayor Bloomberg leaves office.  The proposed sale-for-shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights library almost exactly replicates the sale-for-shrinkage of Donnell (where a 50-story luxury hotel and condominium residence building is now under construction) even though that transaction is much reviled by the public.

Two slides, top and bottom, from NYPL March 2008 staff briefing on new NYPL real estate strategies.  Note Dave Offensend mention for October 2007 and asterisks about what was not previously disclosed to staff.

Mr. Offensend is also a former president of the Brooklyn Heights Association. Talking about the  shock that the Brooklyn Heights Association is not taking a stand against the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights library is where we began.

Another slide from the March 2008 presentation.  Note the technospeak, "Provide better service to users through fewer service points".

Ms. Hallen has recently been talking about the Friends having a big gala event that will involve a significantly different level of opulence than applied to the organization in all the years of its prior, tidy, simpler existence.  In theory there is money coming for such an event from somewhere, but the originally scheduled spring date for the gala has been postponed and it is now planned for sometime closer to the signing of the contract certain people want to see to transfer the library to a developer before Bloomberg leaves office.

   March 2008 NYPL Staff Briefing

What does all this mean?  It will no doubt become clearer as additional facts are emerge and are sorted out.  Some coincidences in the world are just coincidences but these coincidences should at least cause us to think about things that are worthwhile to think about.  One of the most important to consider: Why, when so many people agree that the Donnell library sale was so disastrously conceived and executed, should we now be replicating that transaction so closely with the rushed sale of the Brooklyn Heights library?   

As stated at the beginning of this post, the Friends of the Library group rag-tagging under the dictatorial Hallen is a very awkward fig leaf for the Brooklyn Heights Association to be hiding behind.  That’s especially true as Ms. Hallen, who seems to be bludgeoning her trustees with misinformation and threats, may not even have succeeded in getting them to vote in favor of her position that they should let the library be sold and shrunk.

Bringing it full circle: Not only is the BHA hiding behind the Friends group, Ms. Hallen is also encouraging the Friends group, in round robin fashion, to think that they can take comfort in their association with the BHA.  Stressing the linakge of the BHA and Friends positions, Hallen writes: “The BHA is a much larger force than we.”  Safety in numbers?: It’s an ironic argument when it comes to this shrinking Friends group.

Mayor's Prerogatives Such As They Are, No Island Should Stand Alone: Governors Island Is Headed To Manhattan

The power elite of Brooklyn Heights may be about to conclude that having prevailed in a very important battle they are about to lose a more critical, much bigger war.  Noticing New York has previously written about how, during the planning of the design for Brooklyn Bridge Park, it became a fundamental precept that views from the Brooklyn Heights promenade would consist of bucolic and green vistas* and that all the planned development associated with the park would be aggregated into concentrations of bulk and density to the immediate north and south.  This had the effect of preserving, undisturbed, the tranquility and breadth of the harbor views enjoyed by the expensive homes along the promenade.  This is what the influential Brooklyn Heights Association fought for, and perhaps, not by coincidence, it may be noted that many of those individuals connected with and having a powerful sway over that organization live in those homes.  (See: Monday, May 24, 2010, Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth? An Examination of Brooklyn Bridge Park in Terms of the Politics of Development, Part I and Part II.)

(* It should be noted that while these park areas will be sylvan and pristine to look at, the park design presents an unresolved problem about how noisy they will be for those strolling around in these stage sets replicating a natural setting because the highway noise from the BQE will be bounced directly into these closely adjacent areas.)

Now it turns out the views once thought to have been ensured by such careful negotiation by the Brooklyn Heights Association soon stand to be lost.  As one more of the many gifts Mayor Bloomberg intends to bestow upon the real estate industry before he leave office (which critics are referring to as a fire sale), Bloomberg and his administration are implementing a plan proposed by Vishaan Chakrabarti, the head of the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University, to landfill and connect Governors Island to Lower Manhattan.  See: The Brian Lehrer Show, LoLo: Imagining New New York, Wednesday, December 14, 2011 and New York Times, Visions of a Development Rising From the Sea, by Julie Satow, November 22, 2011.

Click below to hear what is planned to be implemented discussed on the Brian Leher show.

Mr. Chakrabarti was well qualified to spearhead the Bloomberg initiative by making the proposal now being implemented: He is a former director of the Manhattan office for the Department of City Planning and before taking up his position at Columbia he was, according to the Times:

an executive vice president at the Related Companies, the large developer, where he helped oversee the Hudson Yards project and the redevelopment of Moynihan Station. He still serves as a consultant to the company and continues to advise on the projects.

He moved to the position at Columbia to finalize and release the proposal* because, according to Bloomberg spokesperson Marc La Vorgna, as an academic institution Columbia is above the fray and can be counted upon to exercise impartial good urban planning judgment since it is not connected to the “pull of real estate industry interests and the recognized attraction of the lucre that industry generates.”

(*  Chakrabarti trial-ballooned his idea in November 2011 roughly the same time that Brooklyn Public Library Head Linda Johnson similarly trial-ballooned her proposal in October to sell off libraries from the system with an accompanying shrinkage of the system and underfunding to justify the proposal.)

The Chakrabarti plan is viewed as a simple and logical extension of the New York City’s historic pattern of growth through landfill extensions of Manhattan.  However, for reasons Mr. La Vorgna went on to explain, this is not being viewed as an extension of Manhattan to include Governors Island, but instead an extension of Governors Island to include Manhattan.

From the New York Times coverage

Notwithstanding, the new real estate created will be called “LoLo” which stands for Lower Lower Manhattan which Mr. Chakrabarti said market tested with realtors very well, much better, he said, than “HiGo” or “GIGUp” which would be, respectively, “Higher Governors” or “Governors Island Go Up.”

The Municipal Arts Society, the group formed as watchdog for good urban design, is thoroughly on board with the proposal, one reason that Mayor Bloomberg felt confident about proceeding with it quickly.  Said Vin Cipolla, president of the Municipal Arts Society, as quoted in the Times:

“Vishaan is thinking globally. . . and is unabashed about looking at the kind of things that will move regions like ours forward.”

The trustees of the Brooklyn Heights Association, however, have announced that they are quite chagrined that the views from Brooklyn Heights and the famous promenade will now involve seeing much less of an expanse of water and that tall towers will soon be crowding inward as the East River is constricted down to narrow northern extension of what is known as Buttermilk Channel, the waterway that now flows between Brooklyn and Governors Island.

The zoning that will apply to the towers will be the new-stye, greater-density zoning being implementing around the city, similar to the Mid-town rezoning Bloomberg wants to put through, also before his term is out.  The Mid-town rezoing will permitted density in a swath around Grand Central Terminal that will be nearly double what is there now.  

The BHA trustees sad that they had been aware that the Bloomberg administration has been engineering a number of give-aways to the real estate industry on its way out, including the: sales and shrinkage of the library system’s assets, sale of schools to developers and, similarly, the sale of the public housing playgrounds as sites for luxury housing.  Nevertheless, their spokesman said while the BHA trustees were not opposing these things, not even the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights library with the underfunding of the entire library system as a prelude to that, they had not expected that Bloomberg would be taking any action in his give-aways that would affect anything that they actually cared about. This new move by Bloomberg, they said, was truly shocking.

In the fall of 2011 the Times said that the major impediment to the project was “there are strict regulations on building with landfill.”   That problem has been neatly sidestepped, obviated by clever engineering by Bloomberg officials during the waning days of Governor Paterson’s administration when, in a little-noticed maneuver, Bloomberg was handed exclusive jurisdiction over both Governors Island and Brooklyn Bridge Park, using a structure the interposes Bloomberg owned and controlled corporations created by the Empire State Development Corporation.  This gives Bloomberg the power to proceed without any involvement from the City Council.  It also invokes all of ESDC’s exemptions from zoning and any such troubling regulations.

It is for this reason that Bloomberg is proceeding with this project as an expansion of Governors Island and not Manhattan.  Bloomberg released a statement disclosing that he has a legal opinion joined in by both the City’s Corporate Counsel’s office and lawyers from Bloomberg, L.P. that any part of the expanded Governors Island will be under Bloomberg’s corporate control.  The opinion says that when landfill makes the final connecting link to Manhattan, so that the circumference of Governors Island can be described as including that island too, Bloomberg’s jurisdictional control can be considered to expand accordingly.  The opinion also indicates that the authority will be personal to Bloomberg rather than residing in the office of mayor.

Otherwise unprepared and unmobilized to fend off such a previously unenvisioned  eventuality, the coalition of Brooklyn community groups represented by Brooklyn Speaks and Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn ventured, ad hoc, to speak for Brooklyn residents on this matter as well, even though that was not the purpose for which their coalitions were originally formed.  “This is another arrogant land grab!” they said in a hastily prepared joint press release.

“This is no land grab,” huffed the mayor’s spokesperson, “this is a water grab!”

The proposal presents extreme engineering challenges but these have been thought through and anticipated by the Bloomberg administration.  The new land bridge would divert 11,375,177,142 gallons per hour from the shipping channel, about 11.4 billion gallons per hour diverted into the already 3 knot flow of Buttermilk Channel.  Before the land bridge was completed a sizable portion of that immense flow would be flowing through the current shipping channel that the land bridge would be in the process of damning up as it was filled.  In addition, an extension of subway service would have to flow to Governors Island and the new land with the new subway tunnel challenged by this immense fast flow.

If the fast-flowing waters washed away silt, unburying the subway tunnels there is danger the buoyant tunnels could float to the surface.  Things might be especially precarious in the event of another storm with strong tides like Superstorm Sandy.

Costa Concordia

Part of the inspired engineering answer is that Bloomberg administration is buying the salvaged hulk of the Costa Condordia, the Italian cruise ship that  ran aground at Isola del Giglio, Tuscany, on January 13, 2012.  New tunnels will be run through the ship’s body.  Meanwhile, a world-wide surplus of shipping tankers has tremendously reduced the cost of adding other ships to the chain.

Bloomberg says, however, he may be thinking bigger than that.  He noted that the recently built Oasis of the Seas is five times the size of the Titanic and that it was built to give its 6,300 passengers the opportunity of having “a Coney Island kind of experience” with a “boardwalk” neighborhood with an ice cream shop, a doughnut shop, a life-size carousel with horses and tigers and rabbits, all of which were hand-carved for the ship.  The Coney Island area of the large ship may actually be larger than the original Coney Island that the Bloomberg administration has shrunken down.

Oasis of the Seas

According to the Bloomberg press there could be great advantage to buying the Oasis of the Seas for incorporation into the land bridge in several respects.  Coney Island could be moved closer to Manhattan.  It would free up the land out at the old Coney Island for development.  It has always been a problem that the attraction of the outdoor amusements at Coney Island was seasonal so there would be an advantage to moving them inside a ship.  Lastly, buying the ship would clear up any dispute about who owns the licensing rights to Coney Island:  “Coney Island was never just land or a neighborhood, or a community,” said Bloomberg, “it’s a spirit that can be trademarked and licensed.  This helps us lock that license up.” 

Bloomberg also said that exclusively buying cruise ships for the linkages allowed for the possibility of maintaining and continuing over in the conduiting transit pipes the stratification features for different classes incorporated into the ships' design.  Said a spokesman, “We are alert for how any of this could work like a substitute for congestion pricing.”

The final thing noted in the press release was that almost all cruise ships have small libraries.  The Bloomberg administration might keep some of these libraries in place and functional as a replacement for the libraries it is selling throughout the city, including the Central Reference Library behind the lions Patience and Fortitude at 42nd Street in Manhattan where Bloomberg wants to rip out the research stacks this summer in furtherance of the planned sell-off of real estate to developer beneficiaries.

These ship libraries are very small, much smaller than people have been used to, but the libraries will all be along easy-to-get-to subway lines and libraries these days don’t have to be “anywhere as big as they were in that past,” says Bloomberg:

“. . .   because people don’t need to know as much as they used to.  Today we have press releases.  And the beautiful thing about press releases is that they can always be updated to tell people what they need to know today, instead of allowing them to get confused with what they might accidentally remember from yesterday.”

Given what things have come to in this city as we arrive at this first day of this spring month, what is truly extraordinary is that so much of what was once might have been presumed to be fanciful is actually absolutely true.  Check it out using the links supplied.

Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On? - Letter To The New York Times Editor (From Citizens Defending Libraries)

Delivering a hard copy of Citizens Defending Libraries letter to the editor, in addition to a previously emailed copy, for extra good measure did not work to get that letter published in the New York Times

This is about how news does, or does not, get out to the public in this city if the subject of a news story is the real estate industry.  In this case, the subject was a very big story about real estate and libraries.

Two Sunday nights ago the New York Times published an article confirming what most readers of New York already know: New York City libraries are being sold off to developers, implementing a new public policy.  The next day that story was on the front page of Monday’s print edition.  See: Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On, by Joseph Berger and Al Baker, March 17, 2013.

The one good thing about the article is that it clued people into the fact that (whether or not library officials were denying it) these sales were happening across the city. . .

. .  The article took almost a month to get written and get published.*  The fact that the practice was unfolding city-wide was something that reporter Joseph Berger didn’t know and that Citizens Defending Libraries informed him of when he met with me and CDL’s organizer in chief, Carolyn McIntyre (also my wife) nearly a month before its publication.  We also pointed out that, as was noted in the title of the Times article, what was going on with libraries was similar to what was going on with schools.  It’s all part of an across-the-board fire sale as Bloomberg city officials get ready to finish up Bloomberg’s third term.

(* I predicted in advance, and turned out to be correct, that the story, posing difficulty for the Times, would take a long time to come out and be converted to a multiple byline.)

Revelation of the city-wide nature of what was going was the main good thing about the article.  In virtually all other respects the article was simply a compilation of real estate industry talking points about why selling city libraries is supposedly a good thing.

Here is what the article did not include, expressed in a Citizens Defending Libraries letter to the Times editor from Carolyn McIntyre. The Times did not publish this letter.  Mind you, a letter to the New York Times editor cannot exceed 150 words so the unpublished letter boils down to 149 words its statement of what the Times article left out:

    * * * *

March 22, 2013

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, New York 10018

Re:    Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On (March 17, 213)
   
To The Editor:

Your front page article (March 17th) on selling libraries describes the policy "increasingly . . used" in the city to sell libraries on land "developers crave."

The article doesn't say these sales, since 2008's Donnell closing, involve shrinking the system.  The Central Library Plan is a consolidating shrinkage, including effectively decommissioning 42nd Street's Central Reference Library.  Brooklyn Heights' library sale closely clones Donnell's shrinkage.   

Unreported is that Brooklyn Public Library's CEO admitted (Daily News) that money from the Brooklyn sales doesn't go to the libraries or that the BPL, not prioritizing public benefit, fixed upon selling properties without arranging for money to return.

Underfunding of libraries, the excuse to sell them, is Mayor Bloomberg's program.  Funding our libraries less than Detroit when libraries are one of the highest priorities of community boards and usage is way up?

Citizens Defending Libraries has a new petition (8,500+ signatures) protesting this unjust, shortsighted policy.

Sincerely


Carolyn E. McIntyre
Citizens Defending Libraries

    * * * *

If you presume that the Times article omitted all of the above despite the fact that Citizens Defending Libraries called all of these things to the reporter’s attention at the outset, you would be absolutely correct.  Furthermore, it was not just what the Times left out; it was also what the Times wrote that was inaccurate and misleading.

When we met with Mr. Berger I carefully explained that these real estate deals don’t ensure that they will be to the highest bidder or provide the best return for the public.  That’s because they propose to use a RFP “Request For Proposals” process (side-stepping a simple “request for bid” process) to enter into “public-private partnerships.”  Forest City Ratner, a firm library officials say they expect could be among those they will do business with in connection with the library Mr. Berger arrived to report about, is notorious for its history of and expertise in abusing developer-driven partnerships.  Nevertheless, without indicating that there might be any other point of view, the Times article flatly states in the opening paragraphs that properties will be offered  “to the best bidder.”  (Was some careful thought given when that sentence was structured to say “best” rather than “highest”?)

This assuring pronouncement from the Times was notwithstanding that I had explained to Mr. Berger that I used to run the legal department of the state finance authorities. I did not explain to him that I was a principal author of their procurement guidelines. Had I done so I doubt that it would have resulted in a difference in his copy.

Inclusion of what was significantly left out of the Times story would have turned the Times story virtually on its head since the story’s essential points were that the sell-offs of the libraries a.) could not be helped, and b.) were for the public’s benefit.  Neither is the case.

Getting word out about the Times omissions presented a daunting proposition.  Even though the library story was a front page story of intense local interest the Times did not open that article up to public comment from its readers.  Had the article been open for public comment Citizens Defending Libraries and other New Yorkers could have pointed out the many flaws in the article, its bias and the dismal underlying flaws of the policy that article was supporting.  Comments could also have corrected the failure of the Times to mention to the campaign Citizens Defending Libraries is waging against the new policy and its petition now approaching 9,000 signatures both online and hard copy.  (Here is a link to the petition: Save New York City Libraries From Bloomberg Developer Destruction.)

The Times has likely learned from past experience and comment pages that opened up the subject of the Donnell Library closing that comments critical of selling off libraries come fast and furious.

Under the circumstances, the only way to correct the "paper of record" was to get a letter to the editor published.   The unpublished letter to the editor that appears above had to be withheld from public view until right now.  It had to be withheld until it was known that the Times wouldn’t publish it because the Times Letters to The Editor policy states (emphasis supplied): “Letters to the editor should only be sent to The Times, and not to other publications. We do not publish open letters or third-party letters.”  (See: How to Submit a Letter to the Editor - The New York Times.)

Meanwhile, the uncorrected Times story was having what is described as “The Times Effect.” The story was suddenly deemed to be news.  As soon as the Times story ran a slew of other publications and media published the same story, often repeating it in very much the same terms as in the Times.  For instance, Joe Berger was interviewed on WNYC, where he said much the same thing written in the story: Libraries Eyed as Ripe for Development,  by WNYC Newsroom, Monday, March 18, 2013. Similarly, an unbylined article appeared that day in Business Journal: Can New York's libraries and public housing be saved by private developers? March 18, 2013.

The most recent problematic echo of the Times article occurred on today's Brian Lehrer show where a misinformed moderator substituting for Brian Lehrer at the very end of the segment  puts out as a `correction’ her misimpression that sale of the libraries is not about eliminating library real estate, telling the audience with treacherous authoritativeness that the libraries (as opposed to shrunken libraries) `are being put back.’  See: The Brian Lehrer Show: Funding Public Services Through Real Estate Development, Friday, March 29, 2013.

The most thoughtful article in the slew of articles appearing, one that intuited that something was wrong with the Times reporting and followed up with some independent investigation that cast doubt on the Times narrative appeared in The Observer: Is the Public Getting Swindled By the City’s Short-Sighted School and Library Sell-Offs? By Kim Velsey, March 18, 2013.  (“Is the city is making bad—or at least short-sighted—deals in exchange for a little cash right now? . . . when private, rather than public interest dictates the city’s real estate decisions, that’s a real cause for concern. .  The Brooklyn Public Library. . does not dispute that the value of the real estate is a huge factor in the decision. “ etc.)

The problem for The Observer in making its assessments is that it wasn’t working with any hint of the information Citizens Defending Libraries had supplied the Times, which could have helped sharpen its assessments still further.

While it wasn’t possible to comment on the Time library sell-off story directly, it was typically possible to comment on these echoing stories.  Which should come first: Writing a letter to the Times Editor, or commenting with speed to correct the echoing stories (birds in the hand) but taking care not to use the same language as, and thus disqualify, a letter to the Times editor?  Additionally, it was altogether a very busy week for libraries with several public meetings that needed to be attended, something I will be writing about in another piece.
   
Citizens Defending Libraries probably should have gotten its corrective letter into the Times more promptly: It got its letter in within five days and the Times prescribed period is to get letters in within seven.

But getting a letter to the editor published in the Times doesn’t mean that the letter will say what you want it to say instead of what the Times wants that letter to say.

Three letters opposing the library sell-offs appeared in the print edition of the New York Times Saturday published Saturday morning.  See: Letters - A Plan to Demolish Libraries to Save Them, March 22, 2013.

I repeat them in full below.  One of them, which I have set forth as the first below (it actually appeared last), was from Martha Rowen from our Citizens Defending Libraries team.  Her letter was edited by the Times.  I have included in bold and brackets what the Times edited out and didn’t print from her original letter.  The Times editor screening her letter also indicated to her that if she had been prompted to write her letter by virtue of a website they would be disinclined to print it:

    * * * *

To the Editor:

[Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On (March 17, 213), quotes a claim that “people don’t want to raise taxes” and characterizes the sale of our public property as an “intelligent investment”.   At a time when polling shows Americans consistently in favor of higher taxes on the rich, I question the premise and ask, “Who are the people who do not want to raise taxes?”]  Any plans to sell our public resources to private developers should be voted on by residents of New York City — stakeholders at least as important as developers.

I believe that with full disclosure of the facts and figures, including statistics on rising library use and the modest cost of consistent guaranteed funding, ordinary New Yorkers are quite capable of making intelligent decisions on issues that will profoundly affect them for generations to come.

MARTHA ROWEN
    Brooklyn, March 18, 2013

[The writer is a member of Citizens Defending Libraries.]*

(* NOTE: This edit made it impossible for Times readers to find out about either Citizens Defending Libraries or its petition.)

    * * * *

To the Editor:

The front-page picture of a Brooklyn public library building that may be torn down (“Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On,” March 18) brought me grief. My childhood and professional life were partly lived in that borough.

That a building so rich in its beauty, character and connection to the past is now on the chopping block to make money for apartment house developers is a shameful comment on the city. I have traveled to places worldwide that treasure their history and do all they can preserve it. It’s what gives a city and a nation its identity.

I’m hoping to see demonstrations imploring the city to let that Brooklyn library, and historic reminders like it, remain standing.

JEROME COOPERSMITH
Rockville Centre, N.Y., March 18, 2013

    * * * *

To the Editor:

It is the siren song of money, no matter the public interest and cost.

The Brooklyn Heights library may not be a New York City-designated landmark, but it is a landmark to our families. When our children enter this easily recognized building, they feel that they are entering a special place of learning, connecting with centuries of “great books” and their own history. In doing so, they start on a unique adventure, a lifelong journey.

In placing the library as a minor part of a high-rise building, more than the original library building is lost.

A part of us is lost.

BEVERLY MOSS SPATT
Brooklyn, March 19, 2013

The writer is a former chairwoman of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

As you see from all of the above, the Times with its editing out of facts from its articles, and even the editing of the Letters to the Editor opposing that edited article’s point of view, has tightly controlled the framing of the public’s dialogue about the disposal of these vastly valuable, precious public assets.

Why is it that the Times needed to edit from Martha Rowen’s letter her astute observation that, contrary to Times reporting, the public is actually interested in seeing the libraries properly funded, something that was also indicated in the unpublished Citizens Defending Libraries McIntyre letter?  Unfortunately, in only 150 words you can’t add that libraries are a pittance to fund in terms of the city’s overall budget or that their funding is typically one of the highest priorities of the city’s 59 community boards.

The choices the Times made with respect to what to include can be interesting. . .

. .  Meeting with Joseph Berger in February we referred him to the new Center For An Urban Future Report released in January about usage and funding of the libraries.  The Times article actually included a quote from David Giles, the research director of the Center, who authored that report, getting a blessing from Mr. Giles that “there was wisdom to the approach” of selling off the libraries.  But, in doing so the Times made no reference to the existence of the report itself or its principal conclusions, the main reasons we said it was important to refer to it: That library usage is way up (40% programmatically, 59% in terms of circulation), that the underfunding of libraries by the mayor is aberrant and unwise and that the annual budget dance in which New York City libraries wind up being underfunded is simply a “kabuki dance,” the kind of political theater that ought to be dispensed with.

We’ve talked and communicated with Mr. Giles.  His report and its principal conclusions were, no doubt, an unexpected upset for those intent on converting libraries into real estate inventory.  I expect the upset generated difficult discomfort.  Mr. Giles tells us he agrees with efforts of Citizens Defending Libraries to obtain the funding for libraries that they deserve.  He doesn’t agree with us on everything.  What he believes, and we don’t agree with him on, is that the significant people now in charge at the libraries, who are intent on selling them off while shrinking the system, are people who are earnestly looking for `creative solutions’ the primary purpose of which will be to benefit the libraries.

Once again: The Times has tightly controlled the framing of the public’s dialogue about the disposal of these vastly valuable, precious public assets.  Why is that and is that how it should be?  Could it be that real estate advertising is very important to the financially beleaguered Times?  I am sure that others will have explanations to offer although they may not be radically different. 

Citizens Defending Libraries has added a web page to its collected web page where all the responses to the Times article promoting the idea that libraries should be sold can be published to correct the record and balance the dialogue no matter what the Times would edit out.

Community Alert! Community Alert! The Brooklyn Heights Association’s New Community Alert Says The BHA Favors The Sale And Shrinkage Of The Neighborhood’s Library!

With little fanfare the Brooklyn Heights Association posted a “Community Alert” on March 14th that says it is in favor of the sale and shrinkage of the neighborhood’s Brooklyn Heights library with a more than 50% shutdown of that library starting in just a few months.  It should, indeed, be a matter of neighborhood alert and it looks as if, for some reason, the board of the BHA has voted to sell the community out.  (It is also a sell-out of all the citizens of New York City).

The sale of the library to create a developer deal culminating in a huge new tower on the border of Brooklyn Heights and Downtown Brooklyn is still a matter of breaking headlines but those who know what’s going on will be aware that this is just one in of a number of proposed real estate deals where libraries are being sold, the library system shrunk and the whole system intentionally underfunded to promote the sell-off of these public assets.  In response, there is a petition in opposition to these practices and Citizens Defending Liberties has scrambled to organize and lead the resistance.  Here is a link to the petition: Save New York City Libraries From Bloomberg Developer Destruction

As you will see, every word of the BHA’s March 14th Community Alert is set forth sequentially below in italics with ensuing analysis of what exactly those words mean in terms of selling out the community.  You may want to contact the BHA, especially if you are a member, to let them know that the positions the board has taken are absurd.  Making sure that everyone you know signs the petition will also help serve as a rebuke to the BHA’s cavalier attitude about protecting the community. 

BHA’s Statements of Position (indented and in italics) Followed by Noticing New York’s Analysis

Like other cultural institutions, the Brooklyn Public Library has faced cuts in its City-provided funding in recent years.

This is extremely misleading: The libraries are not like other cultural institutions; they are a basic city service that are supposed to be funded by the city.  This is one reason why many libraries like the Brooklyn Heights library were actually put in city ownership with express agreements that they be city-funded and funded to a certain level of service.  What is true is that, especially since Bloomberg got his third term (immediately prior to which the mayor bumped up library funding in his run-up to the election), the libraries have been targeted by the Bloomberg administration for starvation.

The starvation was a calculated prelude to an intended fire sale of the real estate.  Even library spokesmen such as Josh Nachowitz (who transferred to the Brooklyn Public Library from the Mayor’s development agency, EDC, just in time to work these real estate sell-offs) says that there would be no need for these real estate sell-offs if the libraries were actually receiving the adequate funding they are supposed to.  It's just that Josh says that it is assured that the mayor is not going to provide this funding.  According to the recent Center for an Urban Future "Branches of Opportunity" report: “More people visited public libraries in New York than every major sports team and every major cultural institution combined.”   Usage of the libraries is up 40 percent programatically and 59 percent increase in circulation.  And yet we are not funding them to the same degree we fund the heavily subsidized, privately-owned “Barclays” arena and we are not funding our libraries even at the level that Detroit, a city on the verge of bankruptcy, funds its libraries. 

Bottom line, Mayor Bloomberg is defunding New York libraries at a time of increasing public use, population growth and increased city wealth and the purpose is to force the sell-offs of these public assets.  The Brooklyn Heights Association’s complacent statement in the face of this reality is simply a flat out adoption and parroting of the BPL’s talking points designed to serve Bloomberg’s aim to have a fire sale handout of this building to a developer before December 31st, the conclusion of his third and now final term.   

The Brooklyn Heights branch library building is situated on an under-built City-owned plot outside of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District.

The rather pat conclusion that Brooklyn Heights branch library building is on an under-built parcel of land is definitely subject to debate. In fact, the library was built in 1962 as part of an urban renewal rebuilding effort which was specifically intended at that time to reduce the density of what was replaced.  The Brooklyn Heights Association has not opened up for public discussion the question of whether the parcel is “under-built” or whether it should therefore be made a priority target for demolition, no matter the likely disruption and setbacks the public will experience with such a sale and demolition.  It is very possible the majority of residents in the neighborhood and the majority of Brooklyn Heights Association members would disagree with the assessment that the library needs to be torn down because the site is under-built.  The assessment that the site is under-built is simply the assessment of developers wanting to get control of the site.  Once again, the Brooklyn Heights Association has adopted the position of the BPL which is indistinguishable from that of the Bloomberg developers waiting in the wings.

The BPL sees demolition of the existing branch and redevelopment of the land as a way to provide money for the library system and a new, state-of-the-art branch for Brooklyn Heights.

This is wrong in two respects.  Because the city owns the property the funds from a sale would go to the city, NOT the library system. Linda Johnson the head of the BPL, herself previously acknowledged this to the Daily News.  There is no existing enforceable agreement that any money would go to the libraries. A decision was made to sell libraries BEFORE there was any basis to say that some or how much money might be given to the libraries. That’s an embarrassment to the Bloomberg/library officials flogging these deals because it means selling the real estate is their first and likely only real priority, not doing what is best for the libraries.

“State-of-the-art” is the BPL’s euphemistic substitute for saying that what the public should expect to get will be a library with far fewer books that will be significantly smaller.   As residents on Brooklyn Heights may be the best to know, new is frequently not better than old.  New often means flimsy and cheap by comparison.  The only way they can allege that a new smaller library will somehow be an acceptable replacement is to say that this version of new will be better than old is to say the it will theoretically be something generically referred to as “state-of-the-art.”

The library proposes to downsize from the 62,000 square feet of publicly owned space now available for use by the library to perhaps as little as 15,000 square feet.  There will be a long period of construction during which children growing up in the neighborhood will have to make do with an even smaller temporary library, that being perhaps as little as 5,000 square feet.  (In a similar situation, Manhattan’s Donnell Library closed in spring of 2008, promising replacement of a smaller library in 3 ½ years but is now not expected to be complete until at least some time in 2014.)  

Furthermore, the diminishment of the library would commence immediately, even before construction begins, and persist over a far longer period of time because the BPL has stated that it plans more than a 50% shutdown of the library starting in a just few months with a redeployment of library staff as soon as the whether gets warm.  The BPL further says that it plans to move the Business and Career library out of Brooklyn Heights, something that would likely occur concurrently with this 50% + shutdown.  To the extent the Business and Career would continue to exist at all it would be found crammed into the more remote Grand Army Plaza main branch where they plan to throw out books because of the insufficiency of available space.

The BPL states that the City has agreed that proceeds from the sale will go to the BPL, and that the BPL will use at least some of the funds to design and outfit a new branch.

Once again, this repeats a misleading talking point of the BPL.  Sale of the library was decided upon by the BPL without any such agreement being in place.  Because money is fungible it is actually impossible to structure such an agreement to effectively ensure any money come to the libraries.  What the city gives with one hand it takes with the other, and the city is intent on keeping the library system artificially starved to create these real estate deals.  Given that many more such deals are in the works we can expect the starvation of the system to justify them to continue for a long time.

As of last report the BPL, acting in haste after the fact to catch up with the already announced sale of the library said that they had come up with an agreement in principle to sign an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the city but no such agreement was signed.  The terms of that agreement have not been made public.  While BHA states here that BPL says that at least some of the funds would go to outfit the smaller library, the BPL’s own handout stated that the smaller library would actually be built at cost to the BPL that is, as yet, unspecified. 

The BPL has also stated that it is committed to providing interim service in a leased location (not a bookmobile) to Brooklyn Heights in the event that the sale and development move ahead.

The interim service in a leased location, at a currently proposed 5,000 square feet and without the continuation of the Business and Career library, will hardly e supportive of the neighborhood.      

The Brooklyn Heights Association board has voted that,  at this time, the BHA will not oppose redevelopment plans for the Brooklyn Heights Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library . . .

The Brooklyn Heights Association board voted without taking community input or holding community information sessions and charrettes to find out what was desired.  In fact, it was only just before the recent annual Brooklyn Heights Association meeting that the public became aware of the possibility that the library would be sold off to a developer in a so-called ”public-private” partnership (a method of proceeding sure to jeopardize the protection of public interest). Nevertheless, when the topic of the library was brought up, the opportunity for public input and reaction was precluded.

    . . . .providing that: 1) there is continuity of library service in Brooklyn Heights throughout the development period; 2) the replacement Brooklyn Heights Branch Library is of adequate size; and 3) the proceeds from the transaction go to the Brooklyn Public Library.

The biggest, most startling news here is that the BHA is endorsing (although its language is subtle and not obvious) a much smaller library and the exile of the Business and Career library which will be part of that significant assured shrinkage.  BPL statements indicate that by expelling the Business and Career library it will be easier to have a differential where there will be relatively shorter hours for the Brooklyn Heights branch.  Previously, based on earlier statements of Judy Stanton, the BHA’s Executive Director, that questioned the wisdom of eliminating the Business and Career library from Brooklyn Heights, BHA members and the public expected the BHA would likely oppose this reduction in services.  Again, the BHA’s decision to accede to this reduction was done without public notice or input.

Not only is the BHA in this language acceding to the shrinkage and reduction of services associated with deporting the Business and Career library out of the neighborhood; it is also acceding to the idea that the “Branch Library” that remains in the neighborhood may also be shrunk down to an unspecified “adequate size.”   . . . The city is growing. . .  If this site is redeveloped (internally the BPL has talked about a 40-story building replacing it) it will be an example of how the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood itself is growing more dense, together with immediately bordering Downtown Brooklyn that is also intended to be served by this library.  Accordingly, instead of consenting to a shrinkage of the library the BHA should be asking for a bigger library with more services.

The obvious insufficiency of interim service that is to begin with the more than 50% shutdown of and redeployment of library staff in just a few months and banishment of the Business and Career library has already been discussed above.  Once again, this will be multi-year insufficiency, likely to outlast quite a few childhoods.

When the BHA implies that it is bargaining for the proposition that “the proceeds from the transaction go to the Brooklyn Public Library” it is participating in a ruse designed by BPL officials working in conjunction with Bloomberg development officials (some of them like Josh Nachowitz, who began as a development official and is now nominally a library official, are indistinguishable from each other).  Aiding and abetting in the promulgation of this ruse does not serve the community.  The BHA would serve the community and the needs of the city as a whole, if, like Citizens Defending Libraries, it called for the immediate (and very affordable) restoration of adequate funding to the library system which would also mean that no forced sell-offs  the library system’s irreplaceable assets would be considered necessary.  There should be a moratorium on deals like these designed to serve developers until adequate funding is restored and until the deals sought to be implemented do not manifest such an an obvious and obsequious willingness to sacrifice the public good to the dictates of crony capitalism.

All on the BHA Board agree that the library is an important part of our community and that the BHA should be part of the planning process.

The BHA can either represent the community in this planning process or fail to do so, but if the BHA is not representing the community and the “part of the planning process” the BHA plays is simply to adopt the BPL’s position then the BHA is being turned into a tool, being used simply to squelch the community’s voice and opposition to the sale, shrinkage and underfunding of the libraries.  At the very least the BHA should be protesting (not acquiescing to) the BPL’s exclusion of Citizens Defending Libraries from the planning process discussion.  The BHA is said to have suggested the recent community meeting but they have so far operated as a tightly-controlled charade dominated by the BPL as it tells participants the goal is to set up the sale of the library at a “fast trot.”

Through our membership in the Community Advisory Group, and by working in tandem with the Friends of the Brooklyn Heights Branch, we expect to be strong advocates for a new library that meets the needs of our community.

At the moment, in this statement, the BHA has advocated for nothing other than 100% acceptance of the developer deal the BPL says it wants to push out the door, signing the library over to a developer before December 31st, the last day of Bloomberg’s term, with the almost immediate more than 50% shutdown of the library.  The BHA is accepting that BPL wants both the shutdown and the hand-off to the developers to occur before the required public reviews.  In other words the BHA has advocated for nothing.  It is, in fact, as if the BHA’s statement was written by the BPL (as it may have been). And the BPL’s statements are as if they were written by the development community (which they probably are).  Therefore for the BHA to say in their community alert that they “expect to be strong advocates for a new library that meets the needs of our community” is a very strange statement indeed, unsupported by the evidence.

Below is a chart showing how the BHA’s so far stated positions are almost exactly identical to the BPL’s and to the position one can infer is that of any developer wanting take over the site.  It also shows how the Citizens Defending Libraries positions representing the community differs pretty much across the board.

Click to enlarge: Chart comparing positions of BHA, BPL, and inferred developer and Citizens Defending Libraries

The Brooklyn Heights Association should, if nothing else, be learning from the lessons of the Donnell debacle, the development model for which has essentially been imported lock, stock and barrel into Brooklyn Heights. 

Here are additional positions that Citizens Defending Libraries has asked the Brooklyn Heights Association to take, which the BHA has, after discussions, been unwilling to do:

    •    “Air Conditioning problems,” the excuse being used to start shutting down the Brooklyn Height library so soon are very suspicious in a number of respects.  The absurd and escalating numbers given for repair.  The BPL’s refusal to let Councilman Stephen Levin pay for the repair last summer.  That the air conditioning repair became a problem only several months after BPL head Linda Johnson said she had some real estate deals like this in mind.  That every time library officials decide they want to sell off a library they questionably cite air conditioning problems and conjure up extraordinary costs: Donnell, the research stacks at the Central Reference Library at 42nd Street in Manhattan, Brooklyn Heights, the Pacific Branch.  And now when they saw they want to “leverage”/sell all the real estate in the BPL’s portfolio they put out a long list of libraries with insurmountable air conditioning problems.  As suspicious as this is, the BHA refuses to ask for evidence that the BPL’s claims are supportable.

    •    The BHA won’t ask for an audit of the library system or these sales.

    •    Deed restrictions could, among other things, impose a limitation on the height, size and bulk of any new building that replaces the library.  Since the land proposed to be sold is public land and given that it was also part of an urban renewal plan, the imposition of such deed restrictions would be a fairly conventional request.  Nevertheless, the BHA is not seeking to negotiate any such restrictions on height or building size although now would be the time to do so.

    •    The BHA is refusing to take a position on the larger question of the underfunding and sale of libraries throughout the city and throughout the Borough of Brooklyn.

    •    The BHA is not opposing a developer-driven “public-private/private-public”partnership hand-off to a developer.

    •    The BHA is refusing to request that developers with a history of (and expertise in) abusing such developer-driven “partnerships,” such as Forest City Ratner, be disqualified from buying the library property and building the smaller library for the public.

    •    The BHA has not requested assurance that normal construction rules should apply (as opposed to what happened with the Atlantic Yards Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” arena).  There shouldn’t be special permissions for the developer to engage in loud and brightly illuminated construction 24/7.   The Brooklyn Heights Association should be enabled to enforce compliance.

One last thing: The position the BHA is taking on libraries is seriously undermining the position it is taking about preserving Long Island College Hospital.  Given how similar each situation is with proposed deals to seel off public assets being driven by the craving of the real estate industry it sends a weak and inconsistent message not to oppose both.  Also, once upon a time, a very long while ago, the Brooklyn Heights Association did fight to save the library. You don’t want to send the message that all it takes is for the real estate industry to keep circling back for a second or third try until it finally does co-opt the local protectors or find them off guard.  That just invites future attacks on all our public assets.

Why is the Brooklyn Heights Association refusing to take positions that protect the community?  It’s a mystery but more background can be found here: Saturday, March 16, 2013, Read All About It: Library System Burglars Are Getting Inside Help - AND - The Mystery Of The Brooklyn Heights Association.